Celia+Schulz

Homemaker Celia M. Schultz, age 29, died in a Chicago home from septicemia caused by an abortion on March 25, 1910. A woman named Mary Rommell was indicted for felony murder by a grand jury. The source document does not indicate her profession, or that the case ever went to trial.

Most illegal abortions in Chicago at that time were perpetrated either by physicians or by midwives. The Homicide in Chicago Database gives no profession at all for Rommell. Typically it notes physicians as such unless the doctor is female, in which case she is sometimes identified as a midwife. Midwives are typically, but not always, identified as nurses or midwives. This leads me to believe that Rommell might have been a professional lay abortionist.

Note, please, that with ordinary public health issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good. For more information about early 20th Century abortion mortality, see [|Abortion Deaths 1910-1919].

For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion]

Sources:
 * [|Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database]
 * Death certificate



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